Biltmore Manor: A North Carolina Excursion

This past week, I was fortunate enough to be able to tour Biltmore Estate, the previous home of the Vanderbilt family. It is one of the largest residential complexes in the United States, with many bedrooms, banquet halls, living rooms, and much much more. I went on the trip with my family and the estate has something for everyone, including a candy store, bookstore, and greenhouse. 

I would love to come back and do a whole other series on the lighting fixtures at Biltmore Estate.

A photo of the Vanderbilt family at the same entrance we just walked through.

Leather tooled walls of the breakfast room.

Also on display at the manor, were intricate and beautiful reproductions of the clothing of the Vanderbilt family and their guests. This collection was created by a costume design company in England. The reproductions were based on photos of the Vanderbilt family, as clothing is very delicate and wouldn't have survived. 

African-American Architects: Plympton Ross Berry

As part of my Virginia Database of African American Architects class, we are supposed to write short wiki articles on 3 African-American architects. My 3 architects were Plympton Ross Berry, Wallace Augustus Rayfield, and William Sidney Pittman. This was a great learning experience for me, because I love history, and it helped open my eyes to the history of the people who blazed a trail for me to become what I am today. It's like a connect the dots of African-American history, especially with Pittman and Rayfield, for reasons that you will read later. I would have to say my favorite of the architects I researched is Berry, just for all he accomplished in his life, and all through his own merit as well as for his philanthropy, which I don't really get into in the article. 

Source: Ohio Memory

Plympton Ross Berry (1834 - May 12, 1917) in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and was born a free man of color. His family moved to Lawrence County Pennsylvania when Plympton Berry was six, and the family were the first African Americans to live in the New Castle area. 

It is not known whether or not Plympton, known to all as “Ross”, had any formal schooling. We only know that he was trained at an early age to become a bricklayer and by the age of sixteen was a master brick and stonemason. Also at the age of sixteen, he constructed the Lawrence County Courthouse, which he completed in 2 years. Berry did a lot of work for the cities and counties in that area, making an opera house and a city jail for Youngstown city. Berry also had the distinction of designing and constructing Youngstown, Pennsylvania’s first mansion, as well as its reconstruction when it burned down a few years later. 

Berry soon had his own construction company, and he employed several white workers in a time when a black man supervising whites was rare. In addition, when local members of the U.S. Colored Troops returned from the Civil War, Berry offered them training and jobs with his construction company. Berry also owned his own brickyard, where he made his own bricks which were said to be unique in color. There are now 65 structures attirbuted to Plympton Ross Berry as either the brick mason, architect, or builder. He continued working until the age of 82.

What's So Great About Granby Street?

Downtown Norfolk is a place I've tried to avoid. I had a bad experience there, and have tried to keep it at an arms length ever since. Enter 3rd year Architecture Studio, and guess where we're headed? You guessed it. My classmate and I took a trip down there a couple of weekends ago, to take pictures and sketch our new project site. I didn't have time to post them due to various things, most of them being other classes. However, since the project is due next week, and I want to show process, I figure better late than never.

Our project is for a company called Retail Alliance. The site is located on Granby Street in Downtown Norfolk and is currently a parking lot. The site is facing the TCC's Roper Performing Arts Center from the front and the Freemason Parking Garage from the back, and is sandwiched between the Madison Hotel and the TRDance Center.
Our professor wants the building we design to be an arcade on the first floor, with office spaces on the second. One of the hardest parts about this project is that it's going to be our first time dealing with Zoning and Building Codes.

Site as of today.

We also passed by the company's current headquarters, which was a bit farther up on Granby. You can tell me what you think about the building in the comments, but all I know is that those windows are killing me. Earlier this week I was describing to my friend "windows that look like they were done on a computer", and this describes my point perfectly.

Retail Alliance's Current Office

Since I had the whole day for Site Analysis, I decided to give Downtown Norfolk a proper look. Once I did, all I could think was, "I have to come back!". The architecture by itself was enough for me to stare at facades for hours, but when coupled with the history and (very important) walk-ability, we have a match made in heaven. 

Norfolk College for Young Ladies

Mini Site History 

• Granby Street was named in 1796 to honor Englishman John Manners (1721-1770), Marquess of Granby
• In 1889, to the right of our site was the Leachwood Seminary. The Norfolk College for Young Ladies was located where the College Plaza of Tidewater Community College is now.
• The Loew's Theater, was opened in 1926, but was closed in the 1970's. It was reopened as the Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center in 2000.
• In 1935, the current TRDance Center was a Hofheimer's Shoe store, and "it claimed that it was the most modern shoe store in the South, with all retail space on one floor, including a children's playground and children's and ladies' barber shop".
• From 1976 to 1986, part of Granby St. was closed and was renamed the Granby Mall.

Though a lot of Granby's Roaring Twenties grandeur is gone, some of the buildings still survive to gives us an idea of what Norfolk would've looked like back then. 

The Roper Performing Arts Center. The inside has been restored to its former beauty and the interior is what I like to call "swank". They found some old movie posters when they were redoing the inside, from back in the early 1900's and they are now displayed in the lobby. 

The Maddison Hotel, with a truly grand entrance. Some of my classmates were able to go inside, but from all that I can tell on the internet, the hotel itself is closed. This place has the honor of having the craziest windows that I have ever seen. 

The designers for this building beat symmetry like it stole something, but somehow, it works. 

Two of my classmates checking out the window display for the building next door, the TRDance Center. We got to meet the owner, Mr. Todd Rosenlieb, and got to see the interior of the building as well. After some digging I found that it was called the Strand Theater, probably after it was a shoestore.

The Velvet Lounge, one of the several nightlife spots on Granby. 

The Monticello Arcade, the prettiest of the two Norfolk arcades in my opinion. I have a thing for the color green, as you may have noticed in my previous posts. We didn't get to go inside the building, as it's closed for the weekend, but the facade was definitely worth the trip.

I would have no idea how to replicate this in an actual drawing. This entrance is located right next to the Monticello Arcade, and is a pretty impressive sight.

I like this building for the horizontal articulation and for the first floor especially. I wonder if it was just the first floor and they added the other floors later on.

The Selden Arcade, one of two arcades in Downtown Norfolk. This particular arcade is filled with art galleries and stores, and has interactive pieces of art. There is also a gallery on the second floor, unseen on the far side of the building. 

I'm not sure of the name of this building, i know that it contains a bookstore called Prince Books, and that  I love the arches at the entrance and the color of the brick very much. 

Not all of the buildings I have shown here are on Granby Street, but they're only a couple of blocks away, mostly on Main Street. This is only a drop in the ocean of what Norfolk has to offer, and I'm sure I'll be back soon. 

Discovering Richmond Part 3

We are once again in the Fan District for the third installment of the Discovering Richmond series. I am always drawn to this area, probably because it has the highest concentration of columns and porches in the Metro area. I took these pictures last winter to be honest, but they are no less interesting for being old.

For this set, I traveled down Boulevard. According to its Wikipedia entry it is a border between the Carytown/Museum District and the Fan District. It contains many architectural styles, including Late 19th And Early 20th Century American Movements, Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals, and Late Victorian. 


For the architecture majors out there, I again promote taking as many pictures as possible. I'm considering making a facade catalog for myself, so i can use it for future Classical projects. It's also useful for letting you know what you can and can't do for windows. If you couldn't do it, then it wouldn't be built. 


We once had a project where one of my classmates pretty much copied a building out right, and the professor showered him with praise. You might think this is cheating or selling out to your own creativity, but some professors are more interested in a good design than one you think is completely unique. Of course, the argument is that nothing is unique or original and that everything that can be done already has. Do not, however, let this discourage you. Some teachers want design that all comes from you, some want you to do something different using classical concepts and designs. It all really comes down to your professor.


Here are my photos and I hope you enjoy them. I definitely enjoyed taking them, despite the cold.  

I'm pretty sure this was my starting point. I took photos of street signs only when the lighting made them legible. As you will see, I only have pictures of 2 despite walking down many blocks. This tells you what kind of lighting I was dealing with.

The first and last synagogue that I have seen in Richmond.

There are a lot of buildings dedicated to the Confederacy on this particular road. 

Columns to die for!

Richmond has many examples of beautiful windows. 

Daughters of the Confederacy Building

Christmas decorations everywhere, I think this was post-noel. 

I love the style of this building, which is a stark contrast to the snow and cold that surrounds it. It made me feel warmer just looking at it. 

The many details on this window are interesting, from the colored glass, to the carvings on top and the bright  color of the window itself.

I would love to use this opening design in one of my buildings. It reminds me of many doors and windows I have seen in Islamic architecture. 

I would hazard a guess that this facade is around 20 ft wide.

Another church, featuring trigylphs but no frieze. These buildings show many different examples for options for Classical design.

I shall follow that trail one day.

One of the many statues on Monument Ave. This one of Stonewall Jackson as you can see on the pedestal below. 

The intersection of Monument Ave. and Boulevard

A Visual Arts Studio/Gallery 

I'm pretty sure this is a church. Yup, definitely a church.

I need to walk this street again this summer, you can see the snow still in some of these photos, I can do it as a before and  after piece. I saw many churches that day, and I noticed that the design for them was very similar. The consistent idea of grand entrance involved columns, a grand stairway and a pediment. I will try to get more pictures of the residences on this road because they are very lovely, and feature many layered porches.